Candy Land

French countryside

We really loved Switzerland, but we were relieved to find ourselves back in France for the ease of camping and the facilities (in France they have a great setup for dumping waste water and collecting fresh water) and for the much cheaper supermarkets that we stocked up in. 

Unfortunately, it was just a flying visit as Poupe needed a warrant and was booked in for his checkup in Holland. 

However we did get to stop in a few beautiful places on the way, like the villages in the Alsace, where we took the bikes down off the roof and spent the afternoon cycling around the region. These villages are famous for their ancient buildings that have been well maintained. There must be rules about building on to these places maybe, as the villages were well protected from modern buildings, so they have kept their original tiny size. The Alsace is also a famous wine growing region and our bike ride took us through a vast area of grapevines. It was stinking hot, and the ride was actually quite tricky. Up hills and down again, on rocky gravel that went on and on. And then there was thunder and lightning, and we found ourselves drenched to the skin, but not cold, so that was nice. But were only halfway through our ride so it was a bit uncomfortable.

Aren't these houses sweet! They look like they are made out of icing. Good enough to eat!  Apparently, it was only the wealthy families in the olden days who would have the slightly more colourful walls, but now most of the people do. It looked wonderful, and fairytale like.

These houses were close to the town wall, which weren't quite as colourful, so it gave us a good impression of how the houses would have looked without the colour.

This is the road that we started getting lost on, and took quite an accidental trip down someones farm road. It was beautiful though. Josh saw a fox behind me as I was taking this picture.

After the Alsace, we drove straight through to Belgium and camped in a lovely spot by the river Ardennen, where we biked to La Roche, the closest village. We found a spot in the shade to rest and have lunch, and then made the ride back again. (Yes, we did have a look around the little town too. It was gorgeous of course and had such an air of summer and happiness. La Roche was tidy and had old style buildings but not genuinely old as it was rebuilt like that after WW2 as 90% of the village was destroyed by the retreating Germans at the end of the war, with much loss of life. So sad to imagine such a tragedy in a beautiful place.)

We've been experiencing some crazy-hot weather, and so after that bike ride back to the river we braved the stream which was rather low and brown, but there were plenty other swimmers enjoying it and luxuriated on the river bank. 

The Ardennen

We met a cute little neighbour too - a musk rat we think. There were quite a few little holes in the grass and we were musing on who they were made by when out of one hole a little head popped out and sniffed around. We fed it a few corn flakes and raisins (we were eating breakfast) and it sat at the hole opening and munched away.

A musk rat? Is that right? One of you might know better..

The next spot we drove to was also on the same river, but at a reserve where Josh got out both kayaks and we paddled up stream to where the river narrowed. This was another gorgeous spot where the banks of the river went straight into the forest - the type that is quite open with mature oaks, beech and birch. With it being summer holidays now, there were some large groups of scouts there enjoying kayaking too but the river was pretty wide and so long that sometimes it looked like we were the only ones there.

The kayak can be a raft too! 

Stalks hanging out at a service station. The photos don't really do them justice.
They are massive and majestic. It was great to see them up close. Normally they are standing onthe top of chimneys. But these ones were happy to be close up to humans.